A great many devices have been conceived and developed for the purpose of holding dental floss during use. My U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,769, issued Oct. 13, 1998, discloses a dental floss system including a dental floss holder including two pivotal holder elements. Floss is positioned in slots formed at ends of the holder elements.
The following patents are cited to show floss holder mechanisms having a degree of pertinence to the invention disclosed and claimed herein: U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,840, issued Apr. 21, 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,062, issued May 23, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,698, issued Apr. 12, 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,023, issued Jul. 23, 1996, U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,256, issued Mar. 10, 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 5,197,498, issued Mar. 30, 1993, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,021, issued Nov. 12, 1996.